


The question that remains

by DarkShadeless



Series: Past, Present, Future [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: And His Brother - Freeform, Arcann's stubborn self, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Nightmares, The Force, and his father - Freeform, and his very complicated relationship to his mother, and it's shenanigans, wow this is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Arcann dreams of it, on and off. Of that night.





	The question that remains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doomhamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomhamster/gifts).



> For you, bc I know how much you like Arcann ;)
> 
> Additional trigger warnings in the bottom notes for those who want them.

 

 

Arcann dreams of it, on and off.

The house is dark. No one’s up and that’s not surprising but there is an air of foreboding hanging over him that makes his nerves prickle. No matter what he does he can never change his course. He makes his way to the living room, slowly.

He knows what he will find.

There’s a body crumbled beside the door. Pieces of stone crunch under his boots.

They are fighting. Kit is throwing himself against his father like a man possessed, with reckless abandon.

The scene shifts. They’re on the walkway in the throne room, high above Zakuul. His father is unchanged, eternal as always but Kit… he wavers in and out of focus. One moment he’s in the uniform of a Knight the next he’s… not. The lightsabers he wields bleed from violet to blue and back.

The Emperor throws his hand out, sending his opponent flying and there’s a shout on Arcann’s lips.

“ **Commander**!”

It shatters the mirage and they’re back in his home. Despite all odds one of the knight’s blades finds an opening and strikes home.

The Eternal Emperor falls.

Still Arcann can’t move. He’s nothing but a spectator here.

The creature crouched over his father’s prone body looks up. Their eyes meet and he is staring into pools of fire.

It looks like a demon out of legend and that’s the last thing he sees before it charges at him and he wakes with a stifled scream, trying not to wake his brother.

It’s so stupid. That wasn’t what happened. It isn’t even _close_ to what happened.

When he came home that fateful night their house had been crawling with Knights of the Order. Mother had been camped out in the entrance hall, as if she needed to be as far away as she could without leaving, Vaylin clinging to her as she hadn’t in years. As though none of their fights mattered. His sister hadn’t even looked up from where she had buried her face in their mother’s neck when he asked what had happened.

“Arcann,” Senya trailed off. She couldn’t make herself say it.

The prince had torn himself away from the sight, dread and derision filling him in a flood. _If she was strong she wouldn’t hesitate._

He’s strong. So he doesn’t.

Arcann presses on, scattering Knights in his wake, though they are strangely hesitant to let him pass. Only when he reaches the living room he realizes why. Realizes, that there has been something _missing_ for hours.

His father is dead on the floor.

There’s a hole in his chest, his eyes are open and unseeing and with the sudden, jarring clarity of someone who has never give a shavit about visions Arcann _knows_ that he is gone.

The reign of the Eternal Emperor has ended.

Shamefully the first thing he feels is _relief_.

There is shock and grief, rage over all his lost chances to gain his father’s approval at last but… But.

No more struggling. No more waiting for acknowledgement that never comes. No more envy for his brother, no more quarrels between them over whether their Father, their god, is _right in all things, Arcann. You need to be patient. Just wait._

He’s dead.

_What are we going to do now?_

Eventually someone grasps his shoulder and Arcann finds himself looking at his mother. He tries to find words and comes up blank, shame sparking through him at how he disdained her for the same.

She doesn’t judge him for it, gently draws him away from the place where their lives as they knew them had been brought to an end.

 

Its hours more before he thinks to ask. Vaylin has been put to bed like a child years her junior, not even a token protest in sight. She wanted her light on and a toy to hold. A _toy_. His sister, who will take retribution on anyone who treats her like a _baby_. Arcann had no idea she still _had_ toys.

 

_He had no idea their father still allowed her toys._

 

Their brother came by only briefly. He’s the Emperor now, for all intents and purposes. Thexan has other duties than seeing to his family.

 

_Maybe there is more than one thing Arcann could hate his brother for._

 

Mother has left briefly, to assist in the transition but returned. She’s a Knight in her own right, she knows her way around the day-to-day business of their Empire, something he too often forgets, but she’s here. Like she always has been.

There, for them, when they need her.

 

_She’s forsaking her duty. She’s the only one who puts them before everything else. It’s shameful. It’s all he ever wanted._

 

His sister is not the only one who seeks comfort from her in ways they haven’t since they were small enough to get their scrapes bandaged by a parent’s hands. The only parent who ever did so.

Why was his father’s approval so important again? Now that Arcann knows he’ll never have it, _even if he knew that before_ , it seems like such a hollow thing.

 

_He still craves it, covets it with a greed that makes him uneasy._

 

Arcann’s place is at his brothers’ side. He should be out there, advising his twin where necessary. Instead he is here, in their temporary quarters, heart roiling with confusion.

 

_Thexan will understand. He always understands. It’s maddening._

 

Finally, when he runs out of things he can busy his hands with, he remembers to ask what should have been one of the first things on his mind. “How did it happen? Who-?”

His mother stills where she is holding his hand between her own, drawing soothing circles on it. Her face is as stone. Arcann almost thinks she won’t answer. That maybe she can’t.

“Kit.”

“ _What?_ ”

It’s insane.

It makes entirely too much sense.

_But how? Why?_

Kit had been Vaylin’s guard for _years_. He’s an exemplary Knight. He fulfils his duties without fail. By all indication he’s completely devoted to the well-being of Arcann’s sister. He-

He knows the royal security detail inside and out. He was involved in every step of it, from planning to execution. Arcann hasn’t seen a glimpse of him all day.

_But he couldn’t kill father! He’s just a Knight!_

Surely, if he was strong enough to murder their _Emperor_ someone would have taken notice! Maybe, as cold as the thought is, the murderer got him out of the way. Shoved him off the platform, with no evidence left behind.

His mother watches his descend into disbelief, unmoved. If Arcann hadn’t heard her say the word he would never guess she has just claimed one of her closest acquaintances had killed her husband. “They’ve recovered the footage. It was him.”

 

 

It was. Arcann rewatches his own father’s demise more times than is advisable, but no one dares deny him.

Innocent enough, it starts with Kit seeing his sister off to some adventure and then settling in to meditate.

Half an hour later the Knight breaks the neck of one of his comrades with the same gentleness he used to fix the plaits in Vaylin’s hair.

Rage doesn’t take him until the Emperor arrives.

Arcann has never seen the man as angry as he is on the surveillance videos. He has never seen _anyone_ so angry. The hate naked on Kit's face puts to shame anything the prince has ever felt himself. Under its influence he isn’t a man anymore, he’s nothing less than a demon.

Whatever drives him, it makes him strong enough to kill their immortal ruler.

 _Are the old stories more than drivel after all? Was he- could he have been possessed?_ Arcann shakes off that piece of superstition. _Nonsense_. _Just because it is unthinkable he would do this, could be stronger than our father…_

Stronger than _them_. Stronger than anyone he has ever known.

 

_Thinking like that makes his head hurt. There’s an echo, a shout, trapped somewhere in his mind._

**_Commander!_ **

The mystery remains, whether their Emperor managed to take hold of his would-be assassin. _Something_ passed between them, after the deadly blow.

No way to find out the truth. Kit has disappeared, on the ship that was supposed to ferry Vaylin to her new lessons, taking advantage of the pre-approved flight plans. He’s in the wind. The galaxy is more than big enough to hide a single man forever.

_Unless he makes a mistake. Everyone does, sooner or later._

And if he did the entirety of the Zakuulan Forces would come down on him. Every man, woman and child in their Empire knows his face, and the price attached to his head. Every agent they have is looking for the traitor.

Arcann can’t decide if he hopes the knight will be caught or not.

If he is, it will be carbonite or execution, and either will break his sister’s heart. But maybe then he will have an answer to the question that plagues him when he lies awake at night.

He will know if his damnable feeling is right and their father is truly dead and gone.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: A child (he's fourteen (14)) seeing their father's corpse and later watching their father's death on security footage bc they are a stubborn shit. My goodness, Arcann, why.


End file.
